Editor's note: This article has been updated to include comments and statements from the Chehalis School Board.
Former Chehalis School District Superintendent Dr. Christine Moloney was the highest paid K-12 employee in Washington state for the 2023-24 school year, with the Chehalis School District paying Moloney a whopping $545,618 in regular pay and severance during her final year with the district.
Publicly available information from the state shows that Moloney’s earnings for the 2023-24 year amounted to $113,510 more than the next-highest paid educator in Washington state, over $336,000 higher than the next-highest paid educators within the Chehalis School District, and well above the average for superintendents of surrounding school districts in Lewis County.
Moloney’s base salary for the 2023-24 school year was just $225,000, which is on par with the total earnings made by Centralia School District’s superintendent for that same year.
But the Chehalis School District agreed to pay Moloney a $350,000 severance payment in June 2024 when the district terminated her contract and announced her resignation.
A copy of the severance agreement provided to The Chronicle by the district after a public records request shows that then-Chehalis School Board President Kelsi Hamilton signed a separation agreement with Moloney on June 18, 2024, in which the Chehalis School District agreed to pay Moloney a $350,000 severance payment by Aug. 15, 2024.
“This amount is inclusive of any cashout of current benefits or compensation that have accrued as of the date of this Agreement, with this amount representing any (and) all sums that are owed to the Superintendent for compensation,” the separation agreement reads.
The high dollar amount stems from a clause in Moloney’s contract that entitled her to “a dollar amount as severance pay that is equal to one half her compensation for any remaining contract years” if the school board terminates her employment prior to the final year of her contract. Her departure was announced by the district as a resignation rather than a firing.
The Chehalis School District entered a three-year contract with Moloney on March 21, 2023, with the contract set to end June 30, 2026.
The Chehalis School District hired Moloney as the district’s superintendent in February 2020 after former Superintendent Ed Rothlin announced his retirement effective at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, according to previous Chronicle reporting. At the time, Moloney was the chief academic officer for the Puyallup School District. Last November, it was announced that she had become the interim superintendent at Evergreen Public Schools.
Moloney’s initial three-year contract expired at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
Had the Chehalis School District terminated Moloney’s contract in its final year, she would have been entitled to full compensation for just that contract year and would only have received COBRA payments for the next year had she been unable to obtain employment within a year after her termination, according to the terms of her 2023-26 contract.
The clause that entitled Moloney to half her contracted compensation for any remaining contract years if the district terminated her contract early also entitled Moloney to “full compensation and benefits for the contract year in which she received the termination notice and COBRA payments for medical benefits for the immediate family for the year after the time when the notice is given,” the contract reads.
The clause states that the severance payment is contingent on Moloney entering “into an agreement with the Board by which she waives any claims against the Board, its members and the District and its employees for damages for wrongful termination or termination without just or sufficient clause.”
The Chehalis School District has not provided a reason why Moloney’s contract ended two years early.
“If everyone in our community had the facts and understood the law related to public employees, and the contract, I believe the great majority would make the same decision the board made,” Chehalis School Board Director J. Vander Stoep told The Chronicle Wednesday.
Vander Stoep noted that the district will save about $200,000 as it combined new Superintendent Rick Goble’s previous position, director of student achievement, with his position as superintendent, when he was promoted in 2024 following Moloney’s departure.
The Chehalis School Board also issued a statement on Wednesday morning. That statement can be read in full at the end of this article.
Moloney announced her resignation on June 18, 2024, stating that she was “leaving to pursue other career opportunities,” according to previous Chronicle reporting.
"The board thanks Dr. Moloney for her years of service,” Hamilton stated at the time. “She worked successfully during COVID to bring our students back into classrooms in September 2020, sooner than any other district our size or bigger in Western Washington by almost six months. She has taken on the lead in updating board and district policies and bringing the AVID system to help grow student performance."
The Chehalis School Board unanimously voted June 18 to name Goble as acting superintendent.
Goble officially became Chehalis School District’s superintendent on July 1, 2024, with a one-year contract ending June 30, 2025. The Chehalis School Board unanimously voted Feb. 18, 2025, to grant Goble a three-year contract.
Goble’s current contract with the Chehalis School District does not include the clause that led to Moloney receiving a $350,000 severance payment, The Chronicle confirmed.
“If the Board terminates the Superintendent without cause, the Superintendent will be entitled to full pay-compensation and benefits for the balance of the contract year — through June 30, 2025,” Goble’s contract reads.
Goble’s base salary for the 2024-25 contract year is $208,000, according to his contract.
His base salary for the 2025-26 school year will be $216,000, according to Chehalis School District Public Information Officer Carrina Stanton.
“Superintendent Goble is doing an outstanding job," Chehalis School Board President J. Vander Stoep said in Feb. 19 a news release. “We see it directly and we hear it continually from teachers, staff, parents and the community. He has continued and grown the focus here on student achievement. It is a sign of Rick’s integrity and commitment to our students and staff that he offered a compensation package almost $30,000 lower than that of the previous superintendent because he recognizes the tight financial times facing Chehalis and all other public school districts.”
The Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) released its final school district personnel summary reports, which include school employee salary data, for the 2023-24 school year on Dec. 11, 2024.
The Chronicle was prompted to look up Moloney’s compensation for the 2023-24 school year following Vander Stoep’s comment on Goble accepting reduced compensation in comparison to Moloney’s contract.
The average total salary for superintendents in Washington state for the 2023-24 school year was $212,653, according to OSPI.
The second-highest paid K-12 educator in Washington state in 2023-24 was the superintendent of the Lake Washington School District in King County, who received a total of $432,108 that school year.
The second-highest paid superintendent in Lewis County in 2023-24 was Centralia School District Superintendent Lisa Grant, who took home $224,253 that year, according to the Washington state fiscal information.
Data shows that superintendents of the surrounding smaller school districts in Lewis County took home between $155,000 and $185,000 in the 2023-24 school year.
School employee salary data between the 2019-20 school year and the 2023-24 school year is publicly available online at https://fiscal.wa.gov/K12/K12Salaries.
“The purpose of the Fiscal Information website is to improve public access to state fiscal data, reports, charts, and maps to promote government transparency through greater government accountability,” Washington state Fiscal Information states on its website.
The same data can be accessed through OSPI at https://tinyurl.com/yu3d9dds.
Chehalis School Board issues statement
The Chehalis School School District Board of Directors provided the following statement to The Chronicle at about 1:40 p.m. Wednesday, just before the newspaper’s print deadline.
“The Chronicle’s recent article regarding the Chehalis School Board’s decision to approve a separation agreement, including severance, for our former superintendent has raised some questions,” the statement reads. “We would like to address them. The hiring and oversight of the superintendent is one of the most critical responsibilities of any school board. A strong board-superintendent relationship is essential to the success of our district. As with any personnel issue in our district, there are limitations on what can be publicly shared about this decision. But our board did not and would not make a decision like this lightly. There were multiple executive sessions, with attorneys present, leading up to this agreement being finalized. Those members of the board who were present stand by the decision made in June 2024. A Chronicle reporter did reach out to Board members for comment Monday via email. However, in at least one case, the message went into a board member’s personal email’s spam folder. That message also indicated the board had until noon on Wednesday, Feb. 26 to provide a statement. However, the story was posted on The Chronicle’s Facebook page at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 25 noting we had not responded. Earning and maintaining the public’s trust in our district and board is of the utmost importance to us.”
The Chronicle’s email to the school board members was sent at 4:30 p.m. on Monday and read as follows: “As I’m sure you’re aware, we’re working on article about former Superintendent Dr. Christine Moloney receiving a $350,000 severance payment when she left the district at the end of the 2023-24 school year. We received Dr. Moloney’s contract and the separation agreement this afternoon via a public records request, and wanted to give members of the board the opportunity to comment. We will add comments from school members to the article if they are received. The press deadline for this is noon on Wednesday, Feb. 26, so please let me know before then if you’d like to comment.”
The Chronicle made no commitment to a publishing deadline for the article, but rather noted the time that statements from school board members would need to be submitted in order to be added to the print edition and final article. Still, the statement from the school district arrived more than an hour after that noon deadline outlined by the reporter.
